TORONTO — Jonathan Shields was sitting 15 rows behind the third-base dugout, waiting for the start of the Toronto Blue Jays’ annual State of the Franchise event.

It is a neatly scripted affair designed to make Shields and his fellow season-ticket holders feel warm and fuzzy about the new season and cleanse the bitter taste of yet another round of futility.

Shields was among those who were disappointed by the Blue Jays’ off-season inertia — they have added a catcher and nothing else — and he had a theory about that. Jays fans, and Toronto sports fans in general, are too easily pleased, he said.

“Toronto teams get to be just good enough to compete and to be entertaining,” he posited. “But Toronto doesn’t go after championships. The only time that any Toronto team has ever gone after a championship was the Jays in that period from the ’80s until ’92, ’93. You look at the Leafs, you look at the Raptors, they’re just good enough to be a little better than mediocre and then they hope to catch lightning in a bottle.”

It is an understandable if debatable theory, born of two decades in which the Jays have wandered in the wilderness without winning anything.

Last season, of course, they loaded up with high-priced help and were consensus picks to win the World Series before spring training started.

In response to the obvious shortcomings of 2013, general manager Alex Anthopoulos made a quality starting pitcher his off-season priority, and so far, all he has done is to sign free-agent Dioner Navarro, an undistinguished catcher.

New York Yankee fans do not tolerate such idleness, Shields said. “They demand that their team always be searching for championships,” Shields said.

Another fan, Brian Loewen of Toronto, offered a more sanguine assessment of the off-season.

“They haven’t lost a lot of the players that were supposed to win the World Series last year, so who expects them to do much more?” Loewen said. “If the players are able to come through and do what they were expected to do, standing pat should be a perfect approach. Now if they don’t … ”

He smiled, pondering the off-season so far.

“It would be nice if they did more, for sure,” he said. “We want to see a winner here.”

About 900 fans showed up for the food and drink, followed by a Q-and-A session with the team’s management, followed by more food and drink.

If they were inclined to rant, the ambience and the rules militated against it.

All the questions for Anthopoulos, president Paul Beeston and manager John Gibbons were collected via email and pre-screened.

In fairness, the questions did address the essential issues, but the event protocol kept the answers soft and generally non-committal.

As Anthopoulos predicted in a media scrum beforehand, the fans at this event were “very respectful, very supportive.”

It is impossible to know what they were thinking as they sat quietly, filling up two full sections as Beeston, Anthopoulos and Gibbons reclined royally in comfy green leather chairs atop the dugout roof. Before this event was moved from various smaller venues to the Rogers Centre several years ago, the dialogue was frank, the give-and-take spirited. One could, on occasion, see a general manager wince and squirm.

There was none of that this time, and very little beforehand when the reporters tried to have their way with Anthopoulos. He indicated the Jays are not close to signing a free-agent pitcher or trading for one.

He said there are deals he could make with players who want to play here, but the price, in dollars and contract length, is too dear.

He thinks the price will go down in a late-developing market, and once the logjam starts to break, a flurry of transactions will follow. He did not plan to wait so long to make a move, “it just worked out that way.” He added: “It’s just hard to make trades.”

Granted, it is an unusual market, owing in part to the fact that some free agents will cost their new team a first-round draft pick as well as a hefty financial investment.

The Jays, however, are not so burdened. Their wretched record last year means their first-round picks are protected; the most they could surrender is a second-round pick.

Trades? With 10 playoff spots up for grabs, nobody wants to trade pitching, although Anthopoulos seemed to hold out hope in a market lagging a month behind what used to be the norm.

“I almost think there’s going to be maybe another layer of trades that could develop once some of these free agents are off the board … I don’t remember (the market) being this open, in terms of trade talks, this late. Normally, everyone’s just kind of getting ready for spring training, maybe worried about some salary arbitration hearings, things like that.”

Asked if he might be willing to overpay to land the arm he needs, he said that depends on how one defines overpay. Asked if he is resolute when it comes to the value he places on possible acquisitions, he hemmed and hawed a bit, then said: “At times you’ll stretch.”

At one level, his replies were sensible and prudent. He admitted that his approach might mean getting scooped and left empty-handed when the market dries up. But if this is a game of chicken, he seems determined to play it.

Naturally, there are fans who disagree and wish Anthopoulos would get on with it, and spend some of those “good resources” he says he has.

Longtime fan Bob Jarvis of Toronto sits squarely in that camp.

“I just don’t know why they didn’t try to fix the holes,” Jarvis said. “It’s about money. I thought they were open to that, but I gather they’re not.”